New kernel makes use of HTC badging

Every once in awhile, we see some stuff that is so subtly brilliant, we just have to take notice.

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Manufacturers branding a device isn’t one of those things, but we see it on every phone. They want you to know, every time you look at the device, who made it… as if you didn’t already. Usually, those little badges are just decorative, and often annoying.

The crew over at Droidlife found a pretty cool set of videos, which you’ll find below, of developer tbladen’s work. He created a kernel that makes use of the HTC badging on the front of an HTC One. While still crude, it shows that they at least have some purpose other than to look pretty.

One video shows the logo used as a simple sleep/wake shortcut, which is cool enough. The second video is equally as impressive, showing the logo used as a menu button. While both are pretty simple and direct, it goes to show that perhaps the logo can be used as a very simple shortcut to just about anything.

More work is, of course, forthcoming. This is a pretty exciting development, and we love it when developers show us just how much smarter they are than us. We’re curious, though… what would you like for the HTC logo to do when you pushed it on an HTC One?